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The Orthodox Family

by Archbishop Chrysostomos

The Orthodox Church exalts the family. The Church itself is often
characterized by the Fathers in images drawn from the family. In the family, as
in the Church, basic values are formed, the soul is shaped and established, and
the path of salvation is set forth. The family is that warm place where the
leaven of the Faith is nurtured, where we first begin to rise to full life in
Christ. It is for this reason that every Bishop, every Priest, every monastic,
and all pious laymen remember, in their daily prayers, their mothers and
fathers, that their "days may be long on the earth." It is for this
reason that, even after their repose, we remember our fathers and mothers and
family members, praying for them fervently and, in our prayers, reaching across
the chasm of death to be with them even in the afterlife, in the spiritual
world. So special is the family that we remember those in error and heresy and
sin even more dearly than those upright and unwavering in the Faith. This is the
wonder of the family.

The Orthodox family, however, is always understood in its spiritual context.
It is a spiritual unit. The selfish, social family, which triumphs the rights or
privileges of blood ties, is for us Orthodox not a true family. An economic unit
that uses family relationships to attain worldly possessions or wealth; the
social unit turned in on itself, making the family responsible only for itself,
that family which is a "god," the single most important thing in life,
that thing most worth fighting for-these, too, are not families for the Orthodox
believer. As exalted and sacred as the family might be, our first loyalty as
true Christians is to God. Anything which comes before Christ, to paraphrase
Holy Scripture, is not worthy of Christ. Anyone who places the priorities of the
family before the Church and the commandments is a cultist, betraying both the
Church and the authentic family. A true family is not worldly. A true family is
an Icon of the Church and the brotherhood of all mankind. A true family does not
confine its love to those within its boundaries, but extends to its neighbors
(and even its enemies) the love which has been developed, cultivated, and
refined within the family.

In contemporary America the social family, the family created without
spiritual goals, is turning ugly. On Christmas and holidays, for example, we
gather in our homes, ignore the poor, resent the "intrusion" of
friends and acquaintances into our food- and drink-filled festivities, and pay
homage to Christ or the theme of the holiday in perfunctory services or
commemorations designed around the family activities-if any homage is paid at
all. We have abandoned, to a great extent, the custom of visiting the infirm and
needy on holidays. Rather, we have turned to a social selfishness that extends
out from these holidays to the whole year, poisoning and killing society itself,
making people cold, alien, and insensitive to others. And even the family itself
suffers. Family members embrace, relate to one another in empty and inane
exchanges of words, and often hide their need for real love and affection-for
the true love and affection known only to the spiritual family, to that family
which reaches beyond itself. Thus the model American family which so shocks us
Christians, but which predominates in the society around us: a family beset by
drug abuse, alcohol, the killing comforts of wealth and material gain, divorce,
and even suicide!

So far has the American family strayed from the spiritual image that, if a
young man or woman is to go away today and enter the monastic life, dedicating
himself to prayer for the family and others, this is an occasion for shame and
embarrassment. The family unit may even explode in hatred, decrying the personal
separation that such a life might entail. Deep love, that love which survives
separation (and even death), is disappearing from our families. We delight in
those who succeed in the emptiness of material life and remove even the
privileges of the family from those who seek the spiritual life. How far we have
come from the traditional Christian family, based as it was in the
past-especially in our Orthodox societies-on spiritual values, in which a
monastic or Priestly vocation was the cause of merriment and rejoicing. To such
families, a monastic or Priestly vocation represents a total fulfillment of
family goals, a realization of the Christian life, and a reification of
Christian ideals. If we reflect on the contrast between the true family and the
social unit qua family created in modern materialistic society, we can
precisely glimpse what the true Orthodox family is.

Just as an army trains soldiers to battle the enemy for the sake of the
homeland, so the true family, the Orthodox family, endows its children with the
spiritual armor by which they can overcome temptation, battle sin, live
exemplary and moral lives, gain union here on earth with God, fulfill the divine
potential within man, and pass into the next life with the spiritual power to
pray for family members left behind. A true Orthodox family teaches love to its
members-that intuitive, spontaneous love natural to blood relations-and
encourages them to go out into the world sharing this love with others and
perfecting it to whatever degree possible. A true family moves out beyond
itself. If family members should gain wealth or fame, these are secondary
things. These accomplishments are measured only by the primary contribution that
they make to the Church, to society in general, and to the fulfillment of
Christian ideals. And if a family member should embrace monasticism, it is for
this individual that the Church reserves the greatest praise: for one who can,
without the reinforcement of family ties and the comfort of marital affection,
show and give love unselfishly; for one who can, living in poverty, produce
richness in his soul and heart; for one who can, in the face of the world's
ridicule and scorn, maintain inner dignity; for one who can, though separated
from his family, show more real love, in his prayers and example, than those
present to it.

Though only part of my family is Orthodox, my own experience in entering the
monastic life has not been as difficult as it might have been. But I have seen
terrible cases of ill treatment, in which monastics have been hurt deeply by the
attitudes of their own families-usually in the case of converts who enter
monasticism from non-Orthodox families. Some families, lacking a spiritual
understanding of the family itself, consider such monastics outcasts, betrayers
of the family, and destroyers of the family unit. Every foul and vulgar
motivation is attributed to the monastic. Hatred, resentment, and antipathy are
engendered among family members for the monastic. We must reflect on these
instances with sobriety, since they reflect an attitude which is now invading
even the Orthodox family in this country, where the larger Orthodox
jurisdictions have either no monastic institutions or-with very few
exceptions-monastic institutions wholly foreign to anything in Orthodox
tradition. Where are those mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers who
would rejoice in offering up a family member to intense service to God, a
service in which limited family love is lifted up to expansive spiritual love?
Where are those who would give up the best, the strongest, and most beloved to a
life of purity?

There could be nothing more pristine than the true Orthodox family. It is,
after all, the crucible in which the elements of whole persons are formed. We
should exalt such a family and pray that God will make us worthy to lead and to
establish such families. At the same time, we must be careful not to accept as a
true family that which is false! We must guard against mere social views of the
family. And those families wrongly formed and wrongly operating we must call-by
the power of love that even they have in their midst-back to the Christian image
of the family that we see in the lives of Christ, the Theotokos, the Apostles,
and the Martyrs and Saints.